Agence France Presse — English
September 28, 2005 Wednesday 1:11 PM GMT
Britain warns stalling Turkey’s EU membership bid would be a
‘betrayal’
BRIGHTON, England
It would be “a huge betrayal” if the European Union were suddenly to
slam the door on Turkey’s bid to join the bloc, British Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw said Wednesday.
Straw told the Labour Party’s annual conference in Brighton,
southeast England, that launching accession talks with Turkey next
Monday was one of the “highest priorities” of Britain’s turn at the
rotating EU presidency.
“It would now be a huge betrayal of the hopes and expectations of the
Turkish people and of Prime Minister (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan’s
programme of reform if, at this crucial time, we turned our back on
Turkey,” he said.
Straw will chair an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg next
Monday that is to finalise a negotiating framework, or set of guiding
principles, for the accession talks that would start the same day,
but last many years.
EU leaders gave Turkey a green light at a summit in Brussels last
December for the talks to begin. But strains flared anew after Ankara
reaffirmed last July its refusal to recognize the government of
Cyprus.
Turkey has also come under pressure to recognize what Armenians call
a genocide against their people in the final days of the Ottoman
Empire during World War I — an event that remains highly sensitive
for Turks.
Worries about overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey was a key factor as well
in the stunning rejection of the EU constitution by French voters in
a referendum last May.
Straw said Wednesday: “The decision on Turkey will be made by EU
foreign ministers next Monday, under our presidency… But the test
next week will be of the EU as a whole.”
“Like the United Nations, the EU has to change with a changing
world… Turkey would lose from a ‘no’ decision — but Europe and its
people would lose even more.”
Straw drew a round of applause from Labour delegates when he linked
Turkey’s EU aspirations to the need for the West to engage the Muslim
world, particularly the Middle East.
“Anchor Turkey in the West and we gain a beacon of democracy and
modernity, a country with a Muslim majority, which will be a shining
example across the whole of its neighbouring region,” he said.
Earlier Wednesday in Strasbourg, the European Parliament gave its
cautious backing to next week’s start of talks with Turkey, while
demanding that Ankara recognise Cyprus and the Armenian “genocide”
during the negotiations.
Turkey’s refusal to recognise Cyprus, which joined the EU last year,
has so far proved to be the main stumbling block to the opening of
talks, which could last for 10 to 15 years even if all goes well.
Turkey has steadfastly refused to endorse the internationally
recognised Greek-Cypriot government since Ankara’s troops occupied
the island in 1974 in response to a coup aimed at uniting Cyprus with
Greece.
Speaking to the European Parliament, Britain’s Europe Minister
Douglas Alexander sought to allay fears about the financial burden of
absorbing Turkey, a developing country in relation to the rest of
Europe.
“The negotiations with Turkey will be the most rigorous yet,
reflecting lessons learnt from the previous wave of enlargement. They
are also expected to take many years to conclude,” he said.